Female Osaka school clerk's pay docked over tattoos

OSAKA —

A 23-year-old woman who works as a school clerk in Osaka has been disciplined for having tattoos.

The woman had her salary cut for one month for violating ethical rules, the Osaka board of education said, NTV reported Friday.

According to the board, the woman got three tattoos from 2012 to 2013: one on her left arm and two on her left ankle. There was an anonymous call to the school complaining about the tattoos, which prompted the board to investigate the case. NTV reported that the woman has agreed to have her tattoos removed.

This is the first time an Osaka government employee has been punished for having tattoos since Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto announced an anti-tattoo policy in June, 2012.

Japan Today

Don't get any Tattoos before you show up for the Olympic Games in Tokyo


Zushi to ban loud music, alcohol at beach

TOKYO —

The local government in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, plans to submit a resolution to the municipal assembly calling for a ban on playing loud music and drinking alcohol at the city’s beach. Anyone with visible tattoos will also be barred.

Source

Mobsters in Japan identify themselves with colorful tattoos.

Maybe the law is related to that, and as with any law it also affects non related people.

Standard policy for japanese schools - dyed hair , piercings , tattoos etc. are all banned. School is taken very serious disruptions are frowned upon . Curriculum and standards are also much higher in japanese schools. Also as mentioned by previous poster tattoos are looked down on as only yakuza have them. Even though japan is modern many of the old traditions are still observed.

reply to post by Expat888


Yes, i agree with you but as long as we don't see this kind of a Tattoo
it is difficult to get the full Picture!

Yakuza used a specific Type of Tattoos but i think this Women
got a "Fashion Accessory" without a deeper meaning!

Japan is sometimes very strange

reply to post by Human0815


If the law defined the mobster tattoo as tattoo well any tattoo have to be checked and sanctioned according to the law, a flaw but once on paper the law.

Human0815
reply to post by Expat888

 

Yes, i agree with you but as long as we don't see this kind of a Tattoo
it is difficult to get the full Picture!

Yakuza used a specific Type of Tattoos but i think this Women
got a "Fashion Accessory" without a deeper meaning!

Japan is sometimes very strange

Tattoos are looked at completely different in Japan.

japandailypress.com...

You are looking at it from the cultural perspective of the US where tattoos really have no meaning. But in a lot of places, tattoos have deep cultural meanings that have developed over decades or even centuries. In Japan, for along time, criminals were branded with tattoos. It was a mark of shame given them by society, a shameful thing. Then the yakuza took that mark and ran with it by covering it with ever bigger, more elaborate, and more colorful tattoos. They became a means of communicating all sort of things about one's criminal affiliations and activities and achievements, sort of like gang tattoos in the US only far more refined. And none of that makes them any more accepted in mainstream Japanese society or culture in any fashion. The roots of meaning are just too deep.

reply to post by ketsuko


No, i don't see it from a US Perspective,
in fact my cultural Perspective is Middle European
but i agree with your Posting!

It is funny, in the US or Europe you could sue the
whole Apparatus for such a Law
and here it is a accepted Reality.

reply to post by Human0815


Sorry, for misunderstanding where you were from. It's just that's the attitude people here have about tattoos. They don't mean anything, not really, unless you belong to a gang. But gang culture and gang tats aren't so deeply a part of our national psyche that other tattoos are deeply stigmatized although if you go to most job interviews with a big, prominent tattoo on display, it's likely to count against you in most professional fields.

Prior to the rise of gang culture, most people associated tattoos with the military I think or maybe bikers.

I lived in Japan for some time and I can assure you, that tattoos are not liked to be seen anywhere in public.
Sure a lot of younger Japanese get tattooed, but it may still prevent you from entry to the hot springs or other places where the tattoos would be visible (there are even signs, that it is forbidden).
Even if you are a foreigner, people actually don't like seeing your tattoos, even though you are 100% not related to Yakuza.
This is just a society thing, they grew up with the image of only Yakuza being tattooed in their minds.
I have a pretty small tattoo on my shoulder and before entering an onsen, I always put a band-aid over it so that I do not offend the people. I got that tip from my girlfriend whose relatives are actually Yakuza (and pretty high up in the hirachy).
A lot of Japanese do the same when they have a small tattoo, but want to enjoy a hot spring.
Especially the Kansai region (Osaka, Kobe, etc.) is full of Yakuza and maybe this makes this whole situation even more plausible.
Let's assume you would have your child in the school and you grew up with the mindset that tattoos are a 100% sign that a person is affiliated with a criminal organization. Would you like your child to be educated by a tattooed person?